Media and the Environment

Germany ended up with an extra parliament building in Bonn, which was planned and under construction when the Berlin Wall came down. They decided to build it anyway and the Bundestag actually met here a few times before moving to Berlin. The building, featuring transparent glass architecture to symbolize open government, now serves as a conference center.
We attended a conference on Media and the Environment, sponsored by Deutshe Welle, Germany's counterpart of Voice of America. However, the content of the conference was based on the assumption that journalists must advocate in favor of action to combat climate change, rather than approach the story with the idea that there may be more than one side to it. A few of the workshops offered tips on how to deal with climate change "skeptics."
After working in the Maldives for several years, I have come to be skeptical of the whole issue. There is no hard evidence that the low-lying islands of Maldives are "sinking" due to rising sea levels, although the Maldivians held an underwater cabinet meeting to publicize their alleged plight and plead for a "fund" to deal with their problems. I attended an interesting session with academics who had studied coverage of the climate change issue in developing countries and was encouraged to see that the trend is toward blaming China and India for high pollution output, rather than bashing the US. However, I met plenty of people who are convinced that it's the developing world's "turn" to pollute because the industrialized countries did it for 200 years, and on top of that we should PAY them to do so while we strip our economies down to the bone.
Europe, and Germany in particular, have led the way in reducing emissions, which was relatively easy for them to do when all the smoke-belching factories of the Communist bloc shut down. Europe also leads in developing green technology, so when they preach the gospel of climate change, there is a direct economic incentive to do so.
One thing the climate change crowd is good at: traveling around the world to have meetings, despite the insane carbon footprint of people flying to the conference!
Just to clarify my own position, I'm in favor of reducing pollution because it's the right thing to do for future generations.